CNN: "Unusual factors" expected in tomorrow's job report

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

"Strong job growth at last? Maybe
Economists expect a big jump in payrolls but unusual factors could cloud the picture."
http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/05/news/economy/job_walkup/index.htm?cnn=yes

Well, the first "unusual factor" appears when you read the first two paragraphs of this article:

"Friday could be the day economists, politicians and the unemployed get the good news about the job market they've long been awaiting -- although the numbers may not be entirely trustworthy.

The Labor Department is scheduled to report on January's unemployment rate and job growth Friday morning, and the consensus view of economists is the report will be one of the best in years."

...and then look halfway down the page for the URL for another article released on CNN today, "Jobless claims surge
New weekly claims for unemployment benefits jumped past Wall Street estimates last week."
http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/05/news/economy/jobless/index.htm

The first article ends with a mind-numbing prediction you have seen quoted in these threads before:

"John Challenger, CEO of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, has been predicting the next job "boom" won't come until 2008."

If you haven't already, get prepared for spin in Biblical proportions when the report is released tomorrow. It will be offered as proof that the Bush tax cuts worked, and a strong admonition against "changing horses in mid-stream"...REGARDLESS of the truth behind the numbers and the jobs that continue to bleed out of the middle class work force like a stuck pig.

[underpants]

1. Graph

I tseems from this that jobless (first time I think) did go down in January as opposed to December but then again we have people who have stopped looking or run out of benefits.

[TahitiNut]

4. And here're the 'jobs' numbers ...

Remember, this shows how much LABOR gets to share in the benefits of our national economy.

[pmbryant]

7. Great graphic, TahitiNut

Really shows the severity of the job dip the last few years.

Any chance you could normalize those numbers to the total working-age population of the U.S.?

:-)

--Peter

[jansu]

2. Unemployments rates

From my understanding, unemployment rates, are reported for the people who are collecting unemployment checks. Since you can only collect for 6 months, take the number they give (5.8%) and double it for the year (17.4%). Then, I don't know how many you can add to that number, for those who have still not found a job, but are not counted. Is this right? Someone must know!

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Well, 17.4% isn't twice 5.8%

so I don't think you have got it quite right. But even if you meant 11.6%, that wouldn't necessarily be 'the number of people who have been unemployed at some time in the year'.

From the BLS web site (http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm):

The number of unemployed persons was 8.4 million in December and the unemployment rate was 5.7 percent.

In December, about 1.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, about the same as a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. There were 433,000 discouraged workers in December, also about the same as in December 2002. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.1 million marginally attached had not searched for work for other reasons such as school or family responsibilities.

The Household Survey is, as it says, a poll of households, so shouldn't be dependent on eligibility for unemployment checks.

[pmbryant]

11. That is not correct

Unemployment rates have nothing to do with the number of people collecting unemployment checks. This is a common misconception though.

--Peter

[priller]

3. Remember that this number will probably be revised downward later

From the article:

Many economists also think seasonal quirks could juice up January's data. Ordinarily, retailers hire extra workers in the last quarter for the holiday shopping season, and the Labor Department adjusts its numbers to discount that extra hiring. But retail hiring was weak in 2003, which possibly made payroll numbers for the holiday months look weaker.

The upside of this is that January's data, which are seasonally adjusted to anticipate big retail layoffs, could look better than they really were since there weren't any excess retail workers to lay off this season.

"Retail hiring between October and December was by far the smallest in years," said Russell Sheldon, senior economist at BMO Nesbitt Burns. "We wonder if those 'not hired' for Christmas will 'not be let go,' as traditionally would happen, in January. If so, that will look like a gain in the seasonally adjusted numbers."

---

That is, just as the December 1,000 number was probably artifically low due to seasonal adjustment, this January number will likely be artifically high. We'll have to wait several months for the revised numbers.

[lancdem]

5. Haven't they been anticipating strong job growth for months

and the numbers have been consistently lower than expectations? We'll just have to see.

[mhr]

6. I've Been Waiting 43 Months For Strong Job Growth

My unemployment ran out 37 months ago.

Went to job fair two weeks ago - 3000 people for 300 positions.

Job growth, what job growth?

[Misinformed01]

8. They can't spin this...Everyone I know either knows

someone who lost their job, or has lost theirs themselves.

Reality bites.

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

9. That's true...

...it has become the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game, only THIS game sucks.